Hornby Virtual Railway 2

My computer easilly meets the minimum requirement but HVR2 is painfully slow - wouldn't advise anyone to buy it unless their computer at least meets and preferably exceeds the recommended spec

Mike Parkes snipped-for-privacy@mphgate.removetoreply demon.co.uk

Well - since there're no dissenters, here goes:

I bought HVR2 a week ago. I installed it on my 1.9 m-htz, 768 meg RAM Dell desktop. It has an NVIDIA GeForce 2 MX/MX 400 video card which I run on a 19" screen set to 1152x864 pixels with colour quality set to "Highest (32 bit)." After 3-4 hours "playing" here's what I found:

1. With this configuration, performance is not a problem.
2. There are two screen modes: full and windowed. Full screen is not workable since the cursor is very sluggish and is barely controllable.
3. The maximum pixel resolution you can define to HVR2 is 1280x960. When I set my pixels to 1280x960 (because at my standard Windows-defined 1152x864 the cursor has to be a few millimetres lower than the object I am trying to select!), I found half the "camera" was off the screen, so I've been running at 1024x768.
4. You can configure a "reflections" graphics feature. I've no idea what it does 'cause each time I open the configuration program it's unchecked.
5. HRV2 has a very powerful landscaping feature. You can raise, lower and flatten the layout to create hills, mountains, valleys, water features etc. But the overall design is flawed. The sequence is to lay track on a flat baseboard --- at ground zero --- before landscaping. When you landscape, you cannot affect areas of track, so no embankments, no cuttings, no tunnels. And if you "lower" ground zero, you immediately get water. It badly needs a way to set the baseboard 'n' feet above ground zero.
6. The camera control has a life of its own. A couple of times I've managed to get it pointing from the ceiling with no way to reset it; QUIT time.
7. I still haven't worked out what the camera "pan" and "look" buttons do.

Any thoughts/comments out there?

Get a copy of Trainz from Oz it should "fly" on your computer. Go to...

it creates reflections in water as a train passes by.

Pan will follow the train as it passes, look will stick to the view you give it.

i'd agree with the comment about using Trainz, it's much the better model railway builder, and will work very well on your spec 'puter, although i'd advise hanging fire for a while because there are new versions of both it, and Microsoft Trainsim due out in a month or so.

mutley

What do you mean by off-screen? The 6 cameras can be moved around at will.

I assumed it meant reflections in water but I seem to get those even when it's unchecked.

If you raise the landscape over a piece of track you get a tunnel, but I can't find a choice of portals.

I don't have this problem.

The pan button moves from side to side (in a straight line rather than round in a circle) and up and down (ie raise and lower the camera in a straight line). The look button rotates the camera up an down. For example, you can raise the camera up to the ceiling with the pan control then look down at the layout using the look button for a birds eye view. I can't remember if the up and down is absolutely up and down or up and down the screen relative to the way the camera is pointing to start with if that makes sense.

I found the throttles were not intuitive, spent ages trying to drag them round in a circle. It actually works by moving the mouse right for faster or left for slower. Is that in the manual? maybe I should rtfm!

All-in-all I think it's a really enjoyable piece of software. I do now have some problems (in another mail).

Andrew